besides, the sky was lightening, and he preferred to wait until
daylight.

During that hour the fury of combat raged among the brick heaps of
Biaches and upon the hill of La Maisonette, and when morning came the
French had recovered both positions.

He could hear them cheering, and was hoping that all was over, when the
crackle of rifle fire commenced from the western edge of the wood, and
he knew that he could delay no longer. His smile gave place to the
blustering frown that No. 6 Company knew so well, and, striding forward,
he became aware from the hoarse roar of voices that something serious
was taking place.

The growing daylight had revealed to the French that the enemy was
holding the wood in some strength; and Dennis, who had spied a long line
of blue-painted helmets in the distance, was stealthily working his way
forward from tree to tree, intent on making a bolt towards them, when
that same roar fell upon his ear.

Looking round, he saw a double company of the battalion that had
entrained with them forming up for an advance with the bayonet. In sixty
seconds they would go charging across the open strip of ground which he
had decided upon as his own line of escape, and their right flank would
pass within a dozen yards of a white-walled cottage that had been
unroofed by a French shell.

He looked at the solid, desperate mass, and then at the thin, struggling
French line feeling its way cautiously forward; and a daring resolve
came to him as the drums began to roll and he heard the command
"Vorwaerts!"

Safe from observation in the ruined hovel, he unslung the festoon of
racket bombs, and with all the power of his strong young arm hurled them
one after another over the top of the wall among the advancing Germans.

Through the aperture where the window had been he marked the effect of
the explosions.

Officers brandished their swords, but the unexpectedness of the bomb
attack produced panic in the broken ranks, which lost their formation
and retired precipitately into the cover of the trees.

But something closer at hand gave Dennis furiously to think!

Led by an officer, half a dozen men ran pluckily forward towards the
hovel, but Dennis did not wait for their arrival. Already he was bolting
for his life for the shelter of a big shell crater, where he meant to
strip off his hated disguise and let the uniform of a British officer
act as a passport to the rapidly advancing French.

As he reached the